The Science of Human Flourishing

About

This site is about understanding and promoting human flourishing. It’s about working out what’s good for us as individuals and as a species, what’s right and good in the world, and what needs to change. It’s about how we should remake the world for ourselves and those who will follow us.

Eudaimonology

I call this pursuit ‘eudaimonology’, which is the science of human flourishing, derived from the Greek word eudaimonia (sometimes spelt eudaemonia), which is variably translated as the good life or human flourishing. It’s a mouthful, so I went with Eudai.org

There is a longer discussion to be had on what human flourishing looks like, and how we may recognise it, but I take it as given that human flourishing is an identifiable, objective state – one we can study, deconstruct and thereby understand.

Background

My name is Simon Ussher and my background is as a medical doctor, specialised in Radiology with subspecialty fellowship training in a few different areas. For some years my interests have been expanding to look at the systematic factors underlying our health, economic justice, community, energy and environment, and a spirituality that permeates all of these issues.

Despite this seeming eclectic mix, the single thread that ties all of these together is human wellbeing, and in that regard we are at the greatest of all crossroads.

Humanity is faced with the greatest threats in our history – global environmental degradation, resource depletion and a growing population, and yet simultaneously we teeter on the edge of technologies that have the potential to fundamentally change the very nature of humanity itself.

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